Iris scrambled to her feet. “But how will you get to the station?”

“I’ve called a taxi.”

“That’s going to be awfully expensive.”

He leaned forward to kiss her cheek. “We’ll try again next weekend, shall we? Give the boys my love.”

“Give it to them yourself.”

“I’m afraid there isn’t time. Vivian? Good to see you.”

He picked up his briefcase and walked back across the lawn with the exaggerated care of a man who’d already washed down his eggs with a few sides of whiskey. As Iris watched, stunned and empty, a small car, red or possibly orange, pulled up to the drive from the lane and stopped. Iris couldn’t see the driver, but she was pretty sure that car was no taxi.

Sasha reached the vehicle and opened the front door. He swung his long body inside and the car took off in a spurt of gravel.

Iris turned back to the game. Her fingers trembled against the sides of her legs, so she folded her arms across her middle. The air smelled of cut grass and sunshine. Little Viv stood at home plate, preparing to swing. Philip Beauchamp stood near the batter’s box, holding a salmon-pink cricket ball in one hand, staring right past Iris at the car that disappeared down the lane.

Lyudmila

LATE JUNE 1952

Moscow

Lyudmila has never traveled outside the Soviet Union. She does not even possess a passport. To travel overseas is to bring attention to yourself, and anyway she has plenty to do in Moscow, stamping out the sparks of counterrevolution before they can catch flame.

Still, the enemies of the Soviet state flourish throughout the world, so she’s developed a network of overseas agents to act as her eyes and—occasionally—her deputies. Mere hours after identifying Mrs. Digby’s sister as one Ruth Macallister of New York City, Lyudmila has a tail put on the woman, just in time to catch her departing New York on a Pan American flight to Rome. When the airplane departs from its scheduled stop in Boston, one of Lyudmila’s operatives accompanies her to Paris. A local tail in Rome picks up Miss Macallister there, where the new husband—a Mr. Sumner Fox, who caught a later flight—meets her at the atelier of a Russian émigré aristocrat.

There’s something fishy about the husband. Lyudmila can’t quite put her finger on it. The marriage checks out—some decadent American resort in Rhode Island in May—certificate, marriage registry, all paperwork in place. But why don’t they travel to Rome together? Why Rome at all? And why do they meet at the place of business of a Russian counterrevolutionary, of all people?

Today is Thursday. Mr. and Mrs. Fox are due in Moscow in three days. Lyudmila’s telephone rings—it’s the head of the American section. He wants her to join him in his office this instant.